A provocative blog post has been circulating lately. It’s called “The Most Important Question of Your Life.”
See what I mean? You have to click on it.
The headline bait yields a sweet reward. Here’s the crux of it:
If I ask you, “What do you want out of life?” and you say something like, “I want to be happy and have a great family and a job I like,” it’s so ubiquitous that it doesn’t even mean anything.
A more interesting question, a question that perhaps you’ve never considered before, is what pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for? Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives turn out.
It’s about what you want to live riveted to in your life.
I find there are things we give lip service to and things we actually do and then there’s a whole range in between.
It brings to mind my friend who lately has been posting these beautiful upcycled furniture pieces on Facebook. She has a great eye and it’s fun to see what she does with something that looks like it’s on its last leg. The comments she gets on her posts are so complimentary and can sometimes go towards those wanting to do what she does.
This is where the above question comes in – What are you willing to struggle for?
You want the pretty piece of furniture that costs almost nothing because it was in a junk pile, but are you willing to strip that table of all the layers of paint and varnish it’s accumulated over the years? Will the detailed carving on the rungs of the chair drive you mad when you have a paint brush in your hand? Those projects take elbow grease and time. Some of them will be failures.
But oh, sometimes bright white paint on decades-old dark brown furniture can turn a little girl’s room into a wondrous place. The sweat and labor put in is part of the heady payoff.
Are you willing to struggle to have it?
This can apply in so many areas of our lives, from narrow ones to broad ones.
Surely if you’ve pared down to an Airstream lifestyle you’ve heard this before – “I want to do that someday.” It’ll be from someone wistful and sincere, but you both know they won’t take on the challenge of simplifying. If HGTV’s House Hunters is any indication, the trend continues to be expansion and having more than we need. How many are really willing to shed possessions in order to have what you have?
It’s simply not for them. They’ve chosen to answer the question in a different way.
People want to write books but they don’t want to sit down and write every day. They want to feel physically stronger but they neglect the gym membership. They want a life partner but dating feels like too much work. They want a spotless home but aren’t willing to curtail their social life in order to have it.
No negatives there despite how they might sound. Just truth. We choose in ways we don’t even realize.
I will put in a copious amount of work when I want something. So will you. It just is.
What a great way to look at our choices.
By Nancy Colasurdo
